That's right folks, beast season is again upon us. More pointed, pointless discussion, more gnarly super animals, and more foul-mouthed podcasts. From today to oh... Christmas'ish I'd guess.

This year we're yet again toying with recipe - 3 opening rounds with a trinity of beasts each hailing from disparate creative wellsprings. Check out the post below for the breakdown.

Don't know what in the 'hey!' a Mega-Beast is? You're not alone! Hell, you're in the majority. But we want you, yes we do - if you'd like to surf this wave of mutilation sporting a full understanding of the situation at hand visit the MBDM About page / FAQ.

So season 4 will be similar in overall structure to what you season 3 vets are accustomed to: 3 rounds lasting two week a piece. Each round features 3 mega-beasts. Listeners share their tide swaying sentiments here on the forums and vote on megabeasts.com. That tally decides a round winner (for example Scraptor) who absorbs the powers of its felled round-mates to become a meta-beast finalist (Evisceraptor). The resulting 3 meta-beasts have a voting round of their own to crown a season champion. That champion absorbs another set of powers and becomes an 'ultra-beast.' Its fate from that point is unclear.

New wrinkles for 2010

In each of the 3 rounds we'll be drawing beast concepts from a different source. One round will follow the traditional format of Norm, myself, and the editors concepting 3 beasties. Another will feature forum community suggested beasts. Hear that? Well I'll have another topic in a sec and you can start flinging darts at the wall. The other round will feature Drabblecast author beasts who arise from past episodes of the podcast. Again, I'll have a topic - we'll need your suggestions to determine which beasties to ask for. Neat right?

This all should be kicking off in a couple weeks. I will again be handling art duties. The first podcast of the new season will be recorded at Dragoncon next weekend and debut shortly after. Until then please make the aforementioned suggestion topics a beehive of activity!

Oh, and if you have any general questions, feel free to post them here on this sticky topic. Thanks all and happy beastings!

Is this going to be an ongoing thing, where seasons 4 and up are available in the future? Or does the answer to that depend on how successfully this set is received. Hmm, maybe I better order two. I can always tell my wife it's an anniversary present, right?

See now, that's good thinking. I can keep one set in unopened mint condition while the other set can be handled, admired, touched by sticky fingered kids, disbanded and eventually lost under the couch only to be re-discovered three years later clothespinned to my middle child's bike spokes in a juvenile attempt to make it sound more like a Harley, which it never does.

boot wrote:Is this going to be an ongoing thing, where seasons 4 and up are available in the future? Or does the answer to that depend on how successfully this set is received.

Yeh, if we sell through the first printing (of what I dubbed volume 1) with any kind of haste it will inform our approach to a re-print, creation of a MBDM card game, or creation of future volumes. I certainly wouldn't mind putting together more.

I guess we can shave em' and rip off the armor plating or something. Or do you me in undress? God, that'd be much worse. Does it say something of my character that all calendar talk means salacious material?

In bummer news today: the MBDM printed cards will be available a day AFTER Dragon-Con. Whomp-wow. There goes buzz on the streets, at least in the short run. We'll have to promo them on the podcast. Swap cards for pumpkin - Norm knows what to do.